No Son for Henry

Henry VIII

Our dearest bloody Mary was born in the year 1516 to Henry Tudor and Catherine of Aragon at Greenwich Palace.  Even at her birth Mary was already looked down upon as a problem. Mary was a girl, and what Henry VIII needed was a boy. Henry desired a son who could carry on the succession and avoid another civil war like the War of the Roses. But alas Mary carried two X Chromosomes and was the only child to survive the coupling between Henry and his first wife. I have a strong opinion, that is based on very little fact, that there was something wrong with Henry's sperm. So many of his children were miscarried or still born. It did not matter the woman, this sad fate seemed to always be the case. And thus Mary carried two X Chromosomes and was the only child to survive the coupling between Henry and his first wife.

Catherine of Aragon

Greenwich Palace

Instead of the reality of the situation, that the man's reproductive contribution determines the sex of the child, Henry blamed his wife for the lack of a son. It was Catherine's job to give him a son and soon Henry became so frustrated that he saw his lack of heir as a punishment from God. While these thoughts were swimming around in the kings head along came a dark haired lady, Anne Boleyn, and she claimed she would be able to give him his hearts desire, a son. But Henry needed a son that was legitimate and that meant that Catherine was in the way. Henry started his lawyers on a quest to get an annulment from his first wife on the grounds that her previous marriage to his older brother had been consummated, which would have made their marriage null and void. Catherine would deny this consummation for the rest of her life and I happen to believe her, she was so religious it was surprising she even consummated her second marriage. Life perhaps would have been kinder to Catherine if she was not born to a royal family and had entered a nunnery. Her God was her truest love.

The Catholic church refused to grant Henry VIII his divorce and so to make a long story short: Henry designed his own church. Once Catherine was out of the way, and their marriage deemed null, Mary too had to be declared a fraud and was stripped of her princess title. From the time of the annulment Mary would thus be referred to as 'The Lady Mary'. I can't imagine being the most important child in all the kingdom, the bell of a court such as Henry held, a princess one day and then being told that she was  a bastard the next. In order to deal with this sense of abandonment she did what her mother had taught her to and turned towards the church for comfort and reassurance. This strong bond with the church, perhaps the only stable thing in her life (stable for her, not the rest of the country that was split between the new church of England and the Catholic church of Rome), would latter be a big driving force towards the deaths she ordered that gave her the moniker 'Bloody Mary'.

Next time we will speed through the five other wives of Henry VIII and their relationship with Mary, along with her younger bother Edward's short reign.

Happy Journey's
Lady Thiessen